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Live music rocks my world!
December 28th, 2009

The brand that’s made me the happiest this year is Wolfgang’s Vault. I go there on a regular basis, often on Friday afternoons when I’m finishing up administrative tasks and need some ear candy. The more I listen, the more often I return. I’ve heard concerts by artists I wish I’d gone to and concerts from the same tours I saw “back in the day” by artists that hadn’t made it big yet. I started going to the site a couple of years ago to relive some great musical moments in my life—but now I’m getting much more.

I love that the Vault has branched out to newer artists and more recent concerts. Their A to Z list of performers is huge and inclusive, so I can experiment. There are artist interviews as well as concerts. There are lots of free downloads as well as ones you have to pay for. Plus concert listings in my area.

The website has improved steadily. It’s become increasingly easy to use and what Wolfgang’s Vault is adding, I’m enjoying. I must be in their target demographic—they’re hitting me in my soft spot and I love it!

What’s the brand lesson? Do one thing really well and build from there. Innovate around what you know and give your customers and fans an easy path to follow as you lead the way. If the substance is there and you demonstrate that you’re listening, you’ll keep your die-hards and win new ones.

Have a great 2010!

Beth Woolley

Beware Sub-brand Fever
October 12th, 2009

A recent client of ours has almost twenty loosely related sub-brands, making their website difficult to navigate and leading to confusion in the marketplace. The company was pushing the master brand, but consumers were left clueless as to what the master brand actually did and how it all fit together.

Purchasing decisions are complicated enough without making it hard for people to understand who you are and why you do it. If you can zero in on the specific role you play, you make the decision making process one step easier. A defined brand strategy and brand architecture can enhance focus and clarity. As an added bonus, you can internally focus your budgets and energy more strategically.

So, how to get focused?

Ask yourself the fundamental questions of brand architecture: is the right strategy to create a strong corporate brand or is it to create a portfolio of strong sub-brands—or a combo of both? Always look at your brand architecture from the point of view of the customer, not how you are internally organized.
Clarify (for both employees and consumers) the roles that the various brands play and how they interplay.
Lastly, use your website’s navigation as a visual guide to communicate this road map.

-Bianca Abate

Upcoming PLP webcast on BrightTalk! Your brand booster: how to leverage every customer experience
June 18th, 2009

webcast

Sign up to attend PLP’s upcoming webcast on July 16th at 3:00 PM Pacific. Principal Briana Marrah will be hosting the webcast to discuss “Your brand booster: how to leverage every customer experience.”

Visit the BrightTalk website to sign up by clicking here.

A Brand Cannot Rely on Social Media Alone
May 15th, 2009

I read a very interesting blog post this morning entitled, “How to Kill a Brand with Social Media.” While I can’t say that I agree with the entire blog—particularly the part that says Twitter is not social media—I do think the author made a very valuable point when talking about the lack of brand alignment in social media.

While most Twitter users are aware of the amazing job that Frank Eliason has done for Comcast on Twitter, acting as a one person rescue squad for their customer service issues, the rest of the brand has not aligned with this new way of doing business . . . Why? Because having one or two people creating a good impression on one platform is not enough. If there is no brand alignment behind the philosophy of listening and responding then all of the social media efforts in the world will not turn a brand around.
–From the IncSlinger blog, posted on May 14, 2009

Although we have been discussing the immense value that social media offers organizations, we don’t believe that a brand can rely on Twitter or Facebook alone to strengthen its relationship with consumers. The brand must be delivered consistently in all customer touch points, not just those in the digital world. A certain computer company that I’ll call “Swell” (for the sake of anonymity) has a great social media strategy—from their blog, to their Facebook page and now their Tweets! Yet, when I call “Swell” to troubleshoot my computer issues, I’m left to navigate through a labyrinth-like phone tree before I reach a “technician” that has no idea how to fix my computer, let alone communicate without reading off a script.

A brand cannot hide behind the façade that it creates online. If you’re not living the brand that you’re projecting online, your customers will eventually find out and they won’t stick around—they might even de-friend you.

-Hiley Spaet